Resolving the Post Emancipation Labour Dilemma in British Guina

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RESOLVING THE POST EMANCIPATION LABOUR DILEMMA IN BRITISH GUINA One of the main dilemmas confronting post-emancipation in Guyana, had been to secure adequate and suitable labour. The planters, who were used to slave labour, were unwilling to address the reality that employment contracts were now based upon remuneration for labour. Meanwhile, the African labourers were fully aware of their value and therefore deliberately controlled the supply of labour to the plantation, while constantly requesting competitive wage rates. Even though slavery had been abolished, it was nonetheless still expected that the plantation economy would be maintained. However, its continued existence relied on the accessibility of a docile and cheap labour force. Consequently, great efforts were made to ensure that African labour remained reliant on the system. The labourers showed their objections to this agenda in a number of ways. They purchased villages and lands and attempted to create their own agricultural economy that was independent from the white-owned plantations, they moved into the urban areas to seek employment and into the hinterland as porknockers. Those who remained and worked on the white owned plantations organized themselves into task gangs and offered their labour to the most competitive employer. By purposely generating a labour shortage, they produced conditions that persuaded planters to offer competitive wage rates. The planters initiated a number of measures designed to frustrate these efforts. These included indiscriminate expulsions, harsh rents and the refusal of farming and grazing privileges on plantation lands. Despite these measures instituted by the planters, labour remained expensive and inadequate, and, coupled with the high production cost, industries and plantations became increasingly uneconomical and many became bankrupt. By 1841, most
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